FOOTBALL Wagga has approached council to liaise with Wagga Cricket on using shared grounds in a bid to extend their season as soccer grows more confident a season will be salvaged this year.
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Cricket also plays games out of soccer's Rawlings Park base, meaning they will need to find some common ground for soccer to extend past its traditional September finish.
If an agreement can't be reached and ground availability becomes an issue, early season rounds could be played in Wagga with out of town fixtures scheduled for later in the season.
"In Wagga we've approached council on our behalf to see if we can get a few extra weeks at the end of our traditional season," Football Wagga president Tony Dobbin said.
"We've approached them (council) to talk on our behalf because we don't want to upset cricket. We'll take whatever we can get, but it has to be done with recognition that if they (cricket) do that we'll be very thankful.
"The ground availability for clubs outside town isn't impacted by summer sports as much, so if we don't get much extension in Wagga itself, maybe we play early rounds in Wagga and play out of town rounds after grounds here aren't available."
Another ace up Football Wagga's sleeve is match-quality lighting will be up and running on three Rawlings Park fields before a planned season start in mid-July.
It means they have the option of condensing fixtures by playing mid-week games at night.
"We've got lights on grounds 2-4 we haven't switched on yet that aren't quite complete, but they'll be ready to go," Dobbin said.
"Cootamundra also has new lighting they used for pre-season matches. With the lighting we may be able to play two or three games a season."
Dobbin said the country's successful measures in fighting the pandemic thus far has made them far more optimistic a season will go ahead.
They have begun discussing potential options of a season make-up with players and clubs, assuming the mid-July target will eventuate.
"We're asking players and clubs to come back with suggestions on what they want the season to look like, and given examples of what's happened with other associations around the state," Dobbin said.
"Some are suggesting a home and away competition with no finals, others want the top two to play a final the next week, one association is dividing their leagues into conferences and playing finals after that.
"If we go ahead in mid-July training would have been cancelled for three months by then, so there's going to be a couple of weeks of training and fitness before we start playing."
"The winter sports have had a few chats about common problems, and how they're dealing with it.
"We're thinking about having a couple of chats over Zoom to resolve some issues.
"Provided the curve stays flat we're becoming more confident that we'll have a season."